Almost Like Being in Love
by Kinky Kiwi
Summary: Prompt: are you comfortable and numb? did they all succumb to all those lies? does it satisfy the greed? is it all you want? well baby I'm not that strong and I'm walking wounded all alone Hayffie


My first attempt at Hunger Games ff-eek! Let's see how this goes, aye? Hayffie, of course, owned by Suzanne Collins.

His first year as a mentor, he's still young, and still cocky enough to believe he can push away the cries of death and the looks in their eyes by making his way through a bottle and a woman in his bed. His first year as a mentor, he still believes he has a chance at being happy.

His first year as a mentor he caught sight of her without her wig, and he's on his way to meet her, but he's early-he knows these Capitol citizens are sticklers about being early ("prompt" her predecessor would elegantly correct him), so he decides he'll get her into his bed by arriving early-even on time for once in his life.

Effie Trinket is an interesting creature in her habits, but he wouldn't say that she's ever stood out in a crowd in appearance-there are always other women with brighter colours, more intriguing silhouettes, tottering on higher, more dangerous heels. Despite all her makeup and eyelash collection (he likes a good set of eyes, but those lashes are like spider webs), Effie Trinket doesn't stand out from the Capitol crowd.

Which is why when he arrives early and sneaks a look through the cracked door (he's hoping for a moment of undress), he doesn't expect to find her brushing out her long, ink black hair-her customary poof of a wig sitting in its open box on the bed behind her.

He can't articulate why, but it throws him off enough to make him walk away and arrive five minutes late for their arranged meeting.

The years go by, and tributes come and die, and Haymitch can no longer delude himself into happiness, only further into his seemingly infinite collection of whisky. He gets older, shabbier, while Effie fucking Trinket trots around on her precious shoes, her poofy wig remaining eerily still on her head while underneath she quivers along with the excitement of the games.

He catches her unwigged again-actually, they get into an argument about appearances (she's too tactful to outright say it's him who needs to shape the fuck up and not her), and he's actually got her shouting at him right up in his fucking face, and all he wants is another drink but he needs her gone, so-he just snatches it off her head.

Silence drowns out his need for more alcohol as they both stand and stare at each other, her ink black hair coming undone from it's pins and that's when he sees it. Ignoring her silent outrage, her murderous eyes follow his somehow still hand as it brushes a streak of rebellious greying hair out of her face and behind her ear.

Effie Trinket has never slapped someone that hard in her young life, and makes it a priority to go through her collection of lace and ribbon gloves until the bruise fades.

The next time she wears a white wig (pale primrose pink, the box says) is a couple of years later at the reaping of the 74th Hunger Games.

(It's her 30th birthday present from her mother, and she's decided that Haymitch no longer deserves silent power over her choice of wigs. )

The next time Haymitch catches her without her wig, she's been through the ringer-being 'rescued' from the Capitol was probably an experience almost on par with the torture itself. These people do not care for her, only the Mockingjay herself, and getting Effie back in one shape doesn't mean she can't be dinged along the way.

He kneels down in front of her, puts his hand on her shoulder. He makes sure not to brush her hair, which is now wholly grey with a feeble streak of black hanging on, determined not to give up it's rightful place on her head. She just looks at him with pain in her eyes, eerily reminding him of those tributes he had had to kill, once upon a time.

That night he sits in bed and just looks at the remaining dregs of whiskey he has left. He can't quite touch it, despite the look in her eyes. It's the worst night he's spent sober in a long time, but Effie's unadorned eyes keep him awake.

It's not an unwelcome, or a surprise when she shows up on his doorstep after the dust has settled and he's retreated back to his home and bottle in District 12. As they lay in bed together, her now whole grey head of hair resting on his shoulder, he brushes his fingers gently through the soft curls.

"How'd it…" he's grasping for words, suddenly unsure as to why or how this could be an uncomfortable subject, but aware that it probably is, this woman who prides herself on punctuality and appearances and manners and decorum. He clears his throat, can feel her tensing a little under the sheets next to him.

She speaks softly to the night, to him.

It's then when he realises that her excited quivering over the games were nerves. Too many tributes lost by her hand picking their name out of those glass bowls. Too many death sentences, she's handed out, and even though she's grown up loving the games, embracing this "honourable death", she entered as an escort ready to fulfill her 10 year plan, children of her own on the horizon.

Effie Trinket is a Capitol girl, a mask of gold tinted with a variety of colourful hues. It's strong, in the form of her wigs protecting her head, her lashes keeping questioning eyes at bay, her irregular angles in her clothes creating a safe perimeter from her being. Effie Trinket can control her outward emotions with the tributes she sends to their maker, can control her rigorous schedules and meetings, can even, to a small degree, control Haymitch himself.

But if there's one thing she can't control, it's the colour of her natural ink black hair outwardly decaying with her buried emotions.


End file.
